


we are rogues, we are shooting stars

by ninemoons42



Series: to be with me [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Porn, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Rebelcaptain - Freeform, Rogue One - some of them live, Rogue One Spoilers, Smut and Feels, Spoilers, partly canon-compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 03:53:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8952733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: Jyn thought she was going to die on Scarif, in the arms of Cassian Andor. Holding on to him, and helping him to live just a little bit longer.They don't die. They are the last to be taken off the beach. They mourn the dead, and try to live again.





	

Ashes in the creases of the palms of her hands. Ashes clinging to her bruises and to her ripped-up sleeves. She could still smell the greasy reek of scorched metal, and she still couldn’t understand how she had been able to stay on that rickety gantry, high up in the sky with only the lingering afterimages of laserfire to remember the TIE fighter by -- not to mention the Rebel craft that had shot it down.

The pilot -- the pilots -- they’d saved her life. They wouldn’t know what they’d done, but they’d saved her life, and she’d found not just the strength that she needed to get back onto the groan and screech of the gantry. She’d also found the strength to look Orson Krennic in the eye and declare that he’d lost.

And all the while she needed him out of the way, was willing to get shot if it would get him out of her way, just so she could send a vital message out to the Alliance. Project Stardust -- the plans for the Death Star -- her father’s last and greatest work. A tiny flaw in those plans, the tiny flaw that was hidden from the Empire -- the tiny flaw that maybe, just maybe, might help the Alliance in its fight to overthrow the Empire.

But there was no sending that message out without her actual hands on the console -- instead she put her hands up in the here and now, matching Krennic sneer for sneer and bracing herself to fall, to die -- 

And then the man in the white uniform collapsed.

Cassian Andor, leaning heavily against one of the columns that led up to the dish -- and her heart would leap with wild and grateful joy, but that would have to wait until after she’d initiated transmission. Until after she’d _killed_ Krennic. Krennic, who had caused her mother to be killed -- who had destroyed her father. No need to pull some kind of trigger there. Krennic had torn her father away from his home and his family. Forced him to sacrifice his knowledge and his skills for the Empire. Krennic deserved to die a thousand screaming deaths -- 

“Jyn,” Cassian said, and she hated herself for turning away from Krennic, and she wanted to thank Cassian for saving her from doing something that was necessary and that she would regret all the days of her life.

The dish was aligned. The plans were ready for transmission. The planetary shield, however -- she had no idea of knowing if it was still there or not. The silence on the line from Bodhi made her think that terrible things were happening on the beach. She knew that Kaytoo was gone. He’d taken the time to save them, and to say goodbye. Chirrut and Baze. Were they still alive? She had to shake those thoughts away. 

The important thing needed doing.

Cassian and his bruises, and the way he listed to the side. He was just as unsteady as she was. She would have to do. She propped him up, driving her shoulder into his ribs, muttering apologies as he blanched and breathed out a curse in Toydarian. She thought that it might have been Toydarian. Steered him towards the central console and tried to shout a warning in the general direction of the Rebels -- 

It was just data. There would be no stream of light streaking up into the blue blue sky. Scarif should have been beautiful, she’d thought as she hung from the gantry. Should have been a world for relaxation and for laughter. But the Empire had built its archives here. It had stained the beaches with metal tracks, with AT-ACTs and legions of stormtroopers and only the skies knew what else. 

She wanted to bring it all crashing down -- for her father, for her mother, for Saw and for -- for Cassian.

“Where to?” he asked, once the plans had been sent off into the unknown.

Jyn shook her head. She had no idea.

“Down,” he said, and so she had no choice: she couldn’t stay here. Couldn’t leave his side. He wouldn’t be able to walk unless she propped him up. And if he wanted to go down, if he wanted to head for the elevator, then that was where she would go.

The cabin was shadows and cool shade, and she stared into haunted eyes, and whispered, “The others.”

“Gone, probably. Most likely,” he said, looking terrified in that tight-lipped, frowning way that he had. 

“And they’ll be looking for us.”

“They don’t have to. We’ll be following them soon enough,” he said.

He looked as though he would burst into tears at any moment. As though he was already shrouded in mourning. She couldn’t remember what that was like. But the corners of her eyes prickled with a sadness that slashed at her heart, that left her feeling like she was being thrown back into some evil-smelling prison cell, and she reached out to him with shaking hands.

He was reaching for her, too. His hands were heavy on her shoulders.

Salt on his mouth when she kissed him. The bitter coppery tang of -- blood? Tears? She didn’t want to know. She only kept looking at him. His eyes had fallen closed but, she thought, not to shut her out. She thought he was trying to do the exact opposite. She thought he wanted to lose himself in her -- and she would have done the same, if only he’d ask -- 

The elevator shook and shuddered to a rough stop. 

Jyn held on to him, just for a moment longer. The rough texture of his beard against her fingertips, and the arch of his cheekbones. She could see faint scars on his forehead, and more marching across the bridge of his nose.

It was hard to look away. Hard to take his weight up once more. She was beyond exhausted. Some distant part of her told her that she hadn’t eaten in many hours, hadn’t even paused to take a sip of water, and the world was starting to spin, slow and ponderous, as the adrenaline that had been charging through her veins drained away.

No wonder she stumbled -- but every time she did, Cassian would wince, and she whispered apologies. Laid him onto the sand as gently as she could. 

Did she mean to turn him away from the sea? Did she mean to spare him the sight of the Death Star as it cleared the horizon? She didn’t know. She only kept her eyes on it. Malevolent moon, her father’s tainted masterpiece. 

She saw the exact moment that the firing sequence began, and she choked back the cry in her throat -- she wasn’t going to die without protesting it -- and instead she met Cassian’s eyes again. 

“Your father would have been proud of you,” he said as she pulled him close. As she covered his ears with her hands. As she leaned in to kiss him once again.

“Be with me,” she said against his mouth. “Be with me, here, because there isn’t any more time.”

“Jyn,” he said, and this time she was drowning in his kiss, in his desperate shallow breaths -- 

She had closed her eyes, but now there was a light that was growing brighter and brighter, and she felt the tears spill onto her cheeks. She said, softly, “Cassian.”

And then, an immense impact, and Cassian was torn away from her, and the world grew still and silent as she toppled over.

*

There were voices in her ear, and that was nothing more than sheer impossibility. How could she hear voices? How could she understand that they were in a hurry, that they were worried, that they were trying to make sure they weren’t being followed? She was dead, and she couldn’t be hearing voices.

Neither could she be feeling the touch of a hand against hers. She knew that hand somehow. 

She was grateful to have something to hold on to, if she was just waiting to die.

When that hand was wrenched away from hers, she began to scream.

*

Jyn Erso opened her eyes to smudged and cracked white, and to the soothing clicking of a droid.

“You’re a Too-One, aren’t you?” she asked, after staring at the pincer-like hands.

“Yes,” said the droid, quiet and oddly gentle. “And you’ve had quite the shock. Your heart rate has gone up, as has your respiration. Will you want another shot of sedatives? It would be better for you to keep resting.”

The thoughts that were whirling madly around in her head didn’t make sense. Bed, monitors for her vital signs, a medical droid -- “So I’m not dead?”

“Rather it would be more correct to say, you have just come back from being dead,” the droid said. “You suffered several severe injuries in the course of the -- ah -- fighting on Scarif. But a small group of our commandos were able to find you, and load you onto one of the last ships fleeing the battle.”

She struggled to sit up. Her very bones resisted her. “The others? Who else was saved? Tell me!”

“I will, if you calm down.” 

“I will calm down if you tell me.”

The droid seemed to consider that. “That is logical.” 

She held her breath.

“Captain Cassian Andor is in one of the other recovery rooms; he was still under sedation as of last night. Like you, he had quite an extensive list of injuries; unlike you, he had to spend some time in a bacta tank. He is projected to wake up by tomorrow.”

She should have been relieved. Instead, she asked, “And?”

The droid seemed to droop, and even its voice went a little flat. “There were no others.”

Jyn fell back into the pillows. Now she couldn’t see the ceiling for the hot tears. “Bodhi,” she said. “Baze. Chirrut. Kaytoo.”

A numb sadness seemed to lodge beneath her heart, digging into her with dull claws, and she let it. Someone had to mourn, after all. Someone had to remember. And in this case, in her father’s case, in her mother’s, in her friends’ -- that someone would need to be her.

*

The news coming from outside the room was nothing but terrifying: Alderaan blasted into nothingness. Princess Leia captured. A hero of the Republic dead.

Jyn clenched her hands into fists yet again, and lurched to the edge of the bed. She needed to stand up. She needed to find a ship. She needed a crew. She needed to help.

And as soon as she put her weight on both of her feet, she collapsed to the cold floor. Banging the back of her head on the bedframe did not help matters, and she beat her fists against the tiles and howled out her grief and her pain -- 

“Jyn,” said a voice, and she knew that voice, but she couldn’t stop crying. Couldn’t do what the voice was asking her to do. She was again dissolving into her tears, she was again helpless and now she was only a little less alone -- 

Sobs that weren’t hers. Arms around her, clutching at her, but not to hold her together. Whoever was holding her was falling apart, too. Tears were falling onto her face, mixing with her own. A mouth that was twisted with despair. Scars on forehead and nose.

Oh.

He was here.

“Jyn,” and Cassian was saying her name, over and over, choking on his sobs.

“They’re gone,” she said, and tasted ashes on her tongue. “They’re gone, Cassian, and we’re still alive, and things are falling to pieces, and everything hurts. I can’t walk. They’re gone. I miss my mother. Cassian -- they’re gone.”

“Jyn,” he said, again.

A cry of alarm from somewhere near the door.

There were hands, lifting her back into the bed.

There were hands, trying to pry Cassian away.

Don’t go, Jyn thought. Everyone else is gone. You can’t leave me, too.

“I’m staying right here with her,” Cassian was saying.

“You need to rest, sir,” said the medical droid.

“I will rest here.”

The bed was too narrow for the two of them to share: he was half hanging off the edge even as he lay on his side, copying her. 

She pulled him close. Only he felt real. Everything else was a bad dream, and she would wake up back on the sands of Scarif, facing that lethal light, hiding his eyes from the sight of their oncoming deaths -- 

“No,” Cassian said, after a moment. “We’re alive. We’re alive, Jyn, we really are still alive.”

“How do you know,” she said. She wasn’t interested in the answer. She wanted to hear his voice.

“Because I can still taste bacta on my breath. And I hate the taste of bacta.”

Was he smiling? She reached out to the curve of his mouth, to the lines in the corners of his eyes. 

Beneath her fingertips he was as warm and as vital as he had been on the beach, in what she had thought had been their last moments.

She could trust him, if he was still this warm, if he was still looking at her. 

But she couldn’t help but drop her eyes. 

“I want to get out of here,” she whispered.

“Where to?”

“I want to fight.” Jyn clenched her hands into fists once again. “I -- I know a little about piloting a starfighter. I want to learn how to do it properly. I want to -- I want to fly, and I want to fight.”

Silence.

His fingertips on her cheek, gently stroking.

“Don’t tell me I can’t or I shouldn’t or -- ”

“Jyn,” Cassian said, cutting her off. “I think I know exactly who to talk to. They’re talking about cobbling together some new squadrons. If you and I start training as soon as they let you get up, then we’ll have a chance of getting into the new groups. Then we’ll have a chance to fly -- in the name of our friends.”

“That’s what I wanted to do,” she said, quietly.

*

The day of the mission to destroy the Death Star was the day that Jyn was released from medical custody -- and that only meant that they could stand next to each other, that they could clutch each other’s hands, as they and everyone else waited and hoped and desperately prayed that the too-few pilots would be enough to win -- 

“Why did he turn his targeting computer off?”

“Kriff me, _Darth Vader_ is in this fight too? We might as well give up -- ”

And Jyn rounded on that voice. “Even if I was facing him right now,” she hissed, staring at the humanoid male who looked like he was about to have kind of excretory accident, “I would still fight. Even if he cuts me to pieces. Even if he chokes the life out of me. I’ll die, fighting. I’ll die, but I won’t make it easy for him.”

Surprised mutters in the back of the room, and everyone else making way for a woman in white -- and now that she was looking Leia Organa right in the eyes, Jyn could almost believe that she was so much older despite the opposite being the actual truth. “She speaks for me,” Leia Organa said, and though the words were quietly spoken they seemed to fill up all the spaces between the fearful hearts and the nervous breaths. “And I have been personally interrogated by Darth Vader, myself. We have to keep fighting, even when all hope seems lost. Because that’s not true. Because there is still hope.”

Jyn looked away from the heckler. Met Leia Organa’s gaze head-on.

But when Leia Organa reached out a hand, and said, “Please accept my condolences for your loss,” Jyn rocked back on her heels.

“You have lost a homeworld. You have lost your family,” was all she could muster.

“And you have lost your parents. You have lost your friends. I have lost, and so have you. And we’re still going to fight despite those losses, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” Jyn said, and took Leia Organa’s hand, just for a moment. 

“I hear that you have a request, you and Captain Andor.”

Jyn nodded. “It doesn’t matter whether we get out of this one alive or not. What matters is that we still want to keep going. Our work on Scarif is done. We want a new task -- we want to fly for you. We want to fight for you.”

“The Alliance thanks you for volunteering once again,” was Leia Organa’s answer. “And yes. Whether we get out of this one alive or not is immaterial. You want to become starfighter pilots -- then that’s what you’ll be. We can try to form a new squadron around Captain Andor, with you as second-in-command.”

“I didn’t think about leading,” Jyn said. “I just want to fly. And I can’t lead if I’m new to piloting. We’ll follow orders, Cassian -- the Captain -- and I. We’ll be happy to have someone to follow.”

Leia Organa almost smiled. “If I didn’t have my present duties to think of, I’d be signing up right beside you. I do know how to fly a Y-wing -- and you’ll want to fly at least that, or whatever X-wings we can still fix up to be worth anything in a fight. I will see what can be done.”

*

Jyn watched as the Death Star blew itself apart. Only watched. She couldn’t smile. Couldn’t celebrate.

The others should have been here with her. Or she should have been with the others. Living, together, cheering; or dead, together, with the sacrifices that they had all made completely vindicated.

She walked past the offers of drinks, past the subdued cheer of the remaining pilots and ground crews, and didn’t actually know where to go, as soon as she found herself outside the temple. Its stepped sides loomed into the darkening night. It seemed to be looking over her shoulder -- or was it looking down at her? 

Did it see the pain that pulled her shoulders down? Did it see the grief that she couldn’t let go of?

She started to walk. There was a path beneath her feet, and it led away from the sounds of weeping and the sounds of jubilation. It led into the night, and into the whispering breezes, and into the forest.

Wind, whispering, relentless. It caught the ends of the bandages that she was still wearing, making them flutter. It nipped at her thin shirt. 

It brought her the voices of the ones she had lost.

Everything I do is for your sake.

I am one with the Force.

I’m the pilot.

Little sister.

For Jedha.

When the tears began to fall again, she almost angrily dashed them away. Crying and crying and crying only left her exhausted. Only left her with a scratchy throat and a heavy heart. Wasn’t there anything else that she could do? Didn’t the ones who had died deserve more than just her tears? Yes, she’d fly in their name. Yes, she’d fight on their behalf. Yes, she’d done something to help the Alliance to keep on going. 

She needed to do more.

She stumbled into a clearing. A trickle of water at her feet, from some pond, perhaps, or a stream that was hidden in the night. 

She couldn’t understand the stars that began to wink into being in the sky.

If there was going to be a new squadron -- she’d ask for it to be named after her friends. The name that they’d taken for themselves would live on. “Rogue -- Rogue Squadron,” she said, haltingly. 

“That’s the right name. We’ll ask for the new squadron to take that name.”

She turned around. There was just enough light to see who had followed her. 

“Some of the pilots wanted to speak to me -- well, they wanted to see you, but you weren’t there,” Cassian said. “They said that they would teach us. They said that they would join us. There was one, they all seemed to look up to him -- he seemed to be second-in-command of those who were left. Everyone thinks that Luke Skywalker will lead all the pilots now.”

“He blew up the Death Star,” Jyn said. 

“Without a targeting computer. He reminds me of -- ” 

Even in the faint light she saw him grimace, and look away. 

“Of Chirrut,” Jyn finished.

“Yes.”

“He was the one who spoke to you?”

Cassian shook his head. “No. It was Wedge Antilles. I think I might have recruited him. I can’t remember; it’s been a long time. But his name is familiar -- and everyone knows him, now.”

She stood still, and waited for him to move towards her. 

“As everyone knows you,” he added. “They know that if it hadn’t been for you, today wouldn’t even have been possible.”

“I’ve played my part in that,” Jyn said. “Just a part. You were important, too. And so were all the others.”

“The others. Yes.” He was close enough to touch, now; close enough that she could feel the warmth as he exhaled. “Don’t think that I’m trying to forget them, Jyn, I -- ”

His hands on her shoulders again.

“I don’t want to think about them either -- not right now,” she said, looking into his eyes.

“I want to be with you,” he said.

She felt the corner of her mouth tic upwards. It was almost a smile. It was all the smile she could muster right now. “You,” she whispered.

“You held my hand,” he said, and then he closed his eyes, and his mouth descended upon hers.

This time she could feel the scrape of his stubble against her skin. This time she could feel the gentleness of him, the way he carefully coaxed her to open her mouth. The stroke of his tongue against hers, and the way that he sighed as she reached up to run her fingers through his hair.

She pressed herself against him. He was steady in the night breezes; he wrapped his arms around her and encouraged her to lean into him. Encouraged her to sway closer, to kiss him more deeply. A hurried gasp for breath, a word that was her name falling into the tiny spaces between them. She sucked on his lower lip. She nibbled at the corner of his mouth. She let him run his tongue over her teeth. 

Free-fall, and feeling dizzy, and she only wanted to hold on to him -- but he was stepping away. She called his name, softly.

“Come on,” he said, and she followed him to the base of a tree. 

He was on his knees; he was taking off his jacket; he was holding that jacket out to her.

Jyn shook her head. Stood over him. Held his eyes as she quickly stripped off the thin shirts that she was wearing, as she pulled away the long strips of cloth that were wrapped around her chest.

Her fingertips caught on the various bandages that were still stuck fast.

She wondered what she looked like to him -- but only for a moment. Her thoughts fled her entirely as he stopped her hands from peeling away her trousers. He took over for her: his fingertips against her skin made her shiver, made her bite back a yearning sound that might have been his name. He helped her out of her boots. She was not afraid to stand naked before him.

Words in a language she couldn’t understand. She traced the shape of his mouth as he spoke, and when he was done, she asked, “What was that you were saying?”

He said one of the phrases again: _Eres deslumbrante._ “It means,” he said, quietly, “that you are stunning. That you are beautiful.”

She felt the heat rise in her cheeks. Felt that heat move down her body. She shivered, but not because it was cold; she shivered, because there was something painfully sweet about the way he bowed his head and leaned briefly into her hip. 

She thought she’d long since left sweet things behind -- but here he was, and she sank to her knees, and kissed his slack mouth, and said, “Be with me.”

A long pause, and then: “You said that on the beach, too.”

Before she could reply, before she could explain, he was moving: and he kept some kind of that lethal grace that she’d seen in him on the battlefields of Jedha and of Eadu as he pulled off his clothes. But every now and then he’d reel her in for a deep kiss, and she could never seem to catch her breath -- and then he feathered kisses over the curve of her jaw and down her neck, and she said his name and held on as best as she could.

Incoherent noises falling from her lips as he bit very carefully at the skin that was stretched over her collar bone -- he bit her again, gently, and then began to suck. 

“Cassian,” she cried, heedless of the night and of the cold and of the humming in the forest all around them. 

A response, mumbled against the sting in her skin: “Want you want you.”

“Yes,” she said, and she let her hands drop from his shoulders. She let them skate across the planes of his chest. Up and down his back. He shuddered and swayed into her, and she could feel the hammering of his heart against her breast.

She let herself fall back into the grass.

He was above her in an instant, and he was a shadow against bright bands of color -- the looming face of Yavin -- and she reached out blindly to where his mouth had to be. Touched the tremble in his lips. Up, to the sweat that was beading in his hairline. 

“I -- Jyn,” he began, and she pulled him down into a kiss. 

She cried out when he pulled away, and again when he began to scatter light kisses down, past the hollow of her throat. Down, to her breasts. Ragged gasps -- his or hers? -- as he suckled at her, and it was as if every inch of her skin was on fire. As if he were coaxing her to burn, a high and hot flame, shivering herself apart beneath him.

That was her name on his lips as he traced a narrowing spiral on her thigh; that was her name on his lips as he brushed his knuckles against the core of her.

“Please,” and she caught at his free hand. Pressed his fingertips to her upper arm. She knew he could feel the tiny blocky shape of the implant that she was wearing -- she knew because he groaned her name again, and then drove his fingers into her sex -- and she fell silent, rapt, hearing him draw breath after shaky breath as he found out how wet she already was.

He was going to wear her name out with the way he kept saying it, rasping and breathless, and she wasn’t going to mind. Not when he seemed determined to take her to the peak, not when he was twisting another finger into her.

He said, “Come for me,” and she was being hurled into the stars that glittered distant above them -- 

When she could see him again, he looked awed and pleased and she huffed out a small laugh, one that caught with thorns in her throat. 

And he laughed, too, before kissing her again. Before he fitted one of her hands around his cock. Soft skin surrounding the length and girth of him. 

“Look at me,” Jyn said, and he did, as she guided him into her.

A pause, a moment to catch the breath, to feel the hammering pulses that beat together -- and then she rolled her hips against him -- it was easy to find his rhythm, it was easy to match him thrust for thrust -- and all the while she fought to keep her eyes open. She fought to see the expressions crossing his face. 

He was the one who looked away -- he was the one who dropped his eyes -- he rested his forehead against her shoulder and that changed the angle of him within her, that made her cry out -- and again she was falling to pieces, she was falling over the edge -- 

“Cassian!”

She was still in the throes of her orgasm when he went still -- when she heard him grind his teeth -- 

“Do it,” she whispered.

“Jyn,” he cried, and spent himself within her.

She traced the muscles in his back and shoulders, waited for him to come down from his high.

Piercing needy pang somewhere beneath her heart as he pulled out, and lay beside her.

But when his hand wrapped around hers again, she felt a little better.

“They would have been happy for us,” he said, after a long silence.

“Maybe,” she said. “I don’t know how to be an ‘us’.”

“Neither do I,” was the surprising answer. “But we’ve managed to avoid killing each other. We’ve managed to save each other. Maybe we can be -- like this,” and she felt him squeeze her hand. “Just like this.”

He wouldn’t be able to see her nod. She did it anyway.

*

After they got dressed -- after they kissed -- and before they turned their steps back toward the temple, she bowed her head, and whispered to the voices of the forest and of those who had gone: “Watch over him, and watch over me. We are the ones who will remember you. Watch over us.”

She heard Cassian echo the last words.

*

The space around her was filling up with the rest of the Rebellion’s starfighters. And that was Cassian in the A-wing off her starboard side; she sent him a thumbs-up and kept the S-foils of her X-wing locked closed. 

“All fighters, this is Rogue Leader.”

Luke Skywalker’s voice. 

Jyn allowed herself a small smile.

“Check in, please.”

Acknowledgments up and down the comms, and she took a deep breath and added, “This is Rogue Eight, ready for hyperspace.”

Cassian spoke right on her heels: “Rogue Nine reporting in, ready to jump.”

She switched to the private frequency, and said, quietly, “Don’t leave me.”

“I won’t, Jyn,” Cassian said. “I promised you. I’ll keep my promise.”

“And I’ll keep mine.”

**Author's Note:**

> I am also on tumblr [@ninemoons42](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
